Chapter 322

*Ding*—

It was the sound of metal colliding with glass.

As the Gambler stood up, a copper coin, square-holed and round-edged, fell onto the glass tabletop. The *ding-a-ling* sound startled Xia Yubing, making her whole body shiver. Immediately following was a dull *thud*; Alan, who had been trying to redraw a card just a second ago, collapsed backward onto the sofa backrest with his eyes rolled back, and the playing cards scattered down to the table legs with a *clatter*.

Alan was dead.

"Ah—!" Sha Li Sha Li, who was to the side, screamed in terror. Crystal-clear tears like pearls rolled down her cheeks. The young girl's eyes were filled with fear, and she hurriedly lowered her head, covering her mouth with both hands, terrified that the Gambler might notice her. Her whole body began to shake rapidly like a sieve.

At the same time, two pale fingers emitting a rotten stench gently pinched the copper coin on the table and pushed it to the side of the card pile in the center of the table.

"This is..." Xia Yubing gripped her hand of cards tightly, her eyes fixed on the copper coin in the center of the table. This strange shape, square-holed and round-edged, and these ancient, twisted four-character inscriptions—every feature was so clear and familiar. This was clearly...

Life-buying money.

Xia Yubing's gaze followed the Gambler as it slowly sat back down on the sofa, and the events that had just occurred on the card table replayed rapidly in her mind:

At the same time Alan died, a piece of life-buying money suddenly appeared out of thin air on the gambling table. The Gambler then stood up, pushed the coin to the side of the card pile in the center of the table, and finally sat back down.

"Looking at Ikes's reaction, Alan must have just drawn that Spade 9... Even a stranger like me could guess it, so Alan, who has a close relationship with Ikes, must have been able to see it too."

"In other words, Alan judged the suit of the card he had drawn through Ikes's expression, so he gave up on the Spade 9 he had already chosen and prepared to draw another one."

Thinking of this, Xia Yubing already had the answer in her heart: "Alan's behavior was judged by the Gambler as 'cheating'."

At the same time he was judged as 'cheating', Alan died.

Xia Yubing didn't have a deep understanding of the God of Wealth Wealth Wu Tong's rules, but because of Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe, she knew one of the most basic rules: in front of the God of Wealth, money = life.

"After being judged for cheating, Alan lost his life, and at the same time, a copper coin appeared on the table. This coin was very likely exchanged for Alan's life."

"But why didn't the Gambler put this coin into its own pocket, but instead pushed it to the center of the table?"

While thinking, Xia Yubing's hands didn't stop. She summarized the events that had just occurred into a few sentences and quickly wrote them in her notebook. The tip of her pen trembled with a *rustling* sound. Across the table, Ikes's already very pale complexion had now become even paler.

It was his turn to draw.

The veins on Ikes's hands, which were holding the cards, bulged. The stench of rotting corpses entered his nostrils, causing an involuntary feeling of disgust to rise from the bottom of his heart. His gaze wandered back and forth between Alan's corpse beside him and the Gambler, finally resting on the cards in his hand. The Spade 9 that Alan had pinched still remained in the state of being half-drawn, unchanged in the slightest.

"Hoo..." Ikes took a deep breath, drew the Spade 9 that should have been drawn from his hand, and placed it gently in front of Alan's corpse.

With the placement of this card, the atmosphere on the table seemed to relax a little. He knew he had chosen correctly.

Ikes glanced at Alan's corpse from the corner of his eye and then cast his gaze toward the center of the table, muttering: "That coin..."

Guests who could enter the Saint-Golia Opera House were either rich or noble. As a member of the Ikes family, he was no exception. He had heard a little about that God of Wealth from the distant East... but only a little. He only knew that if one met the God of Wealth, one could supposedly buy life with money; he knew nothing about the deeper details of the rules.

At this moment, a new line of handwriting appeared in the notebook in front of Xia Yubing.

She pulled the notebook off the table and placed it on her lap to check it. The newly appeared black handwriting was very concise, consisting of only one sentence:

【Has Alan's corpse disappeared?】

Xia Yubing was stunned for a moment. In an instant, it was as if a bolt of lightning had flashed through her mind. She hurriedly looked up toward the opposite side of the table, only to see Alan's corpse, with eyes rolled back, still lying there, not having disappeared as Sha Li Sha Li had described earlier.

In the previous Russian Roulette, the loser would clearly leave the gambling game directly and return to the real world.

Xia Yubing hurriedly lowered her head and wrote on the paper: 【No, he is still there.】

Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe's reply quickly appeared on the paper:

【That makes sense.】

【That copper coin should be the stake for your current game.】

【You are gambling with your lives.】

【In a game with gambling characteristics, once a player cheats and is caught, that player will be directly judged as the loser, their stake confiscated, and they will be expelled from the game.】 【This Alan's 'stake' has already been confiscated, but his corpse has not left the game, and that copper coin has not been pocketed by the Gambler.】

【This shows that the Gambler cannot take away this stake, even if it is the dealer of this game.】

【And in a gambling game, besides the dealer, there is only one person qualified to take the loser's stake.】

【—The winner.】

【In other words, among you, there exists a 'winner' who can win this stake.】

【Before the 'winner' takes Alan's 'stake', he will not leave the game.】

As the black handwriting circled a perfect period in the notebook, Xia Yubing looked up with a sense of relief. Across the table, Ikes had finished drawing; he had drawn a Club Ace from the God of Wealth.

Then it was the God of Wealth's turn to draw; he drew a Diamond 2 from Sha Li Sha Li.

Then it was Sha Li Sha Li's turn. Her expression was somewhat strange, but she still drew as usual, pulling a Heart Ace from Xia Yubing's hand.

None of the three had drawn a card that could be paired. Now it was Xia Yubing's turn.

When Xia Yubing turned her gaze toward the Gambler and the cards in the Gambler's hand, she suddenly realized one thing—the Gambler had only one card left.

!

"If the Gambler's last card is drawn by me, then it will have no cards left in its hand..."

The rule of the Old Maid game is that the first player to clear their hand can be the first to leave. But what if the first player to leave is the Gambler?

If it leaves first, will it be considered the winner of this game?

If the Gambler becomes the winner, what will happen to the rest of us?

Questions followed one after another, but there was no time for her to write and ask Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe. The Gambler's hand had already been raised, delivering its last card in front of Xia Yubing.

Xia Yubing tremblingly reached out and drew its last card from the Gambler's hand.

Club 9.

"It really is the Club 9..." Xia Yubing's fingertips paused, and she added this Club 9 to her hand.

She now held a total of six cards: Heart 8, Club 9, Club Jack, Spade Queen, Heart King, and the Big Joker.

And the number of cards held by the Gambler was: 0.

The Gambler was about to leave.

The people at the table held their breath, nervously watching the empty-handed Gambler stand up from the sofa. Its burly skeleton cast a deep black shadow on the table. The pale palm covered in corpse spots was raised under the light and reached toward the table.

"Is it going to take away the stake Alan lost?" This thought emerged in Xia Yubing's heart, but the next second it was denied, because the Gambler's hand did not reach toward the card pile in the center of the table, but toward the deceased Alan, taking the card that Ikes had previously placed on the table in front of him.

That Spade 9.

The gambling game continued. The Gambler first took the Spade 9 from in front of Alan, then leaned down, picked up all the playing cards scattered under the table one by one, shuffled them in its hand, fanned them out, and sat back down in its original position.

Xia Yubing's expression remained unchanged, and she picked up her pen to quickly write a line on the paper:

【Just now the Gambler cleared its hand, but it didn't leave. Instead, it inherited Alan's hand and sat back at the table.】

【It still wants to continue gambling.】

Before long, Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe's reply appeared below these two lines of handwriting:

【Of course it hopes to continue gambling.】

【Because if it just leaves like this, it cannot become the 'winner'.】

【If it doesn't become the winner, how can it take away your stakes?】

(End of chapter)